currentaffairs

Novermber 2018

STATUE OF UNITY

INDIA AS “THE TARIFF KING”CORE SECTORS OF ECONOMYDELHI TB SUMMIT: WHOUS-MEXICO BORDER WALLOCTOBER GST COLLECTIONEASE OF DOING BUSINESS INDEX 2018NASNASA RETIRES KEPLER SPACETELESCOPE

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1. MAHARASHTRA REFORMS THE

APMC ACT

2. EASE OF DOING BUSINESS INDEX

2018

3. INDIA AS “THE TARIFF KING”

4. CORE SECTORS OF ECONOMY

5. THE INDEX OF INDUSTRIAL

PRODUCTION (IIP)

6. CREDIT RATING AGENCIES IN INDIA

7. NASA RETIRES KEPLER SPACE

TELESCOPE

8. STATUE OF UNITY

9. DELHI TB SUMMIT: WHO

10. ASIA BIBI TO LEAVE PAKISTAN

11. US-MEXICO BORDER WALL

12. FATHER OF WEB SEES SPLIT OF

WEB GIANTS

13. US SUPREME COURT ON INDIAN

POWER PLANT

14. ₹1 LAKH-CRORE IN OCTOBER GST

COLLECTION

15. PRIVATE MEMBER BILL ON RAM

TEMPLE

16. PRIVATE MEMBER'S BILL

17. INDIA PROTESTS CHINA-PAKISTAN

BUS VIA PoK

18. ROMANCE OF KURINJI

19. PALAU TO BAN SUNSCREEN AS IT

TRIES TO SAVE ITS CORAL REEFS

20. RETALIATORY TARIFFS PUT OFF

21. CHOKED BY SMOG: ON AIR

POLLUTION

22. U.S. RESTORES IRAN SANCTIONS

LIFTED UNDER OBAMA NUCLEAR DEAL

23. INDIA, ZIMBABWE INK 6 AGREEMENTS

24. PLASTIC WASTE MANAGEMENT

RULES, 2016

25. GSAT-11 RETURNS TO GUIANA FOR

DECEMBER LAUNCH

26. ILLINOIS STATE BRACES ITSELF FOR

ALL-INDIA CONGRESSIONAL RACE

27. KA, KU BANDS AND HTS

28. PACIFIC ARCHIPELAGO VOTES ON

INDEPENDENCE FROM FRANCE

29. INDIA, CHINA AMONG 8 COUNTRIES

ALLOWED TO BUY IRANIAN OIL: MIKE

POMPEO

30. TIGRESS SUNDARI CAPTURED IN

ODISHA’S SATKOSIA RESERVE

31. ‘SAMOSA CAUCUS’

32. ASEAN MEMBER COUNTRIES OF

RCEP OFFER INDIA CONCESSION

33. KAMALADEVI CHATTOPADHYAY

34. NASA’S PARKER SOLAR PROBE

PROBE

35. NOT IN DIRECT TALKS WITH

TALIBAN: MEA

36. INDIA APPRECIATES U.S. WAIVER ON

NEW DELHI-TEHRAN ENERGY TRADE

37. THE CREDIT STIMULUS FOR MSMEs

38. WRESTLING: BAJARANG PUNIA IS

WORLD NO. 1

39. ‘EU SHOULD PAY MORE FOR

DEFENCE’ : USA

40. RUSSIA STEPS INTO AFGHAN PEACE

EFFORTS

41. KHADA DUPATTA

42. THE HUKITOLA BUILDING

43. GOLD NANOPARTICLES TARGET

PROSTATE CANCER

44. WORLD’S LARGEST BRAIN-LIKE

SUPERCOMPUTER (SPINNAKER)

45. SIMBEX

46. CENTRE APPROVES RENAMING

OF 25 PLACES IN PAST ONE YEAR

47. ISRO ‘s MISSION VENUS

48. ‘DISGUISED UNEMPLOYMENT’

49. QUAD

50. HIMA DAS IS UNICEF INDIA'S FIRST

YOUTH AMBASSADOR

51. GROWTH-INDIA TELESCOPE’S FIRST

SCIENCE OBSERVATION

52. GOVERNMENT DIRECTIONS TO RBI

UNDER SECTION 7 UNLIKELY

53. BIMSTEC TO BOOST CONNECTIVITY

54. BOARD FOR FINANCIAL

SUPERVISION

55. SOUTH KOREAN CANDIDATE CHOSEN

AS INTERPOL CHIEF

56. THE SENTINELESE

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57. ‘NEEDS OF 70% OF POPULATION MET

BY PRIVATE SECTOR’

58. ARTIFICIAL RAIN

59. ABHIJIT BOSE NAMED WHATSAPP

INDIA HEAD

60. US COURT ALLOWS DR.REDDY’S TO

SELL GENERIC VERSION OF

‘SUBOXONE’

61. GAUSE’S LAW IN ECOLOGY

62. KHASHOGGI MURDER: EU CALLS FOR

ACCOUNTABILITY 63. LEANING TOWER OF PISA

STRAIGHTENED BY 4 CM

64. TERM OF OBC PANEL EXTENDED

AGAIN

65. ‘PSBS CAN SEEK LOCS AGAINST

DEFAULTERS’

66. ONE MILLION CLOUD COMPUTING

JOBS TO BE CREATED BY 2022 IN

INDIA: REPORT

67. CLOUD COMPUTING

68. INDIA, CHINA SET FOR POST WUHAN

BOUNDARY TALKS

69. AUSTRALIA LAUNCHES VISION 2035

FOR INDIA

70. ILLIQUID STOCKS

71. BANKS UNDER PCA SEE RETAIL LOAN

SHARE JUMP 400 BPS

72. OCEANS ARE HEATING MUCH

FASTER: STUDY

73. LUNAR LANDER FACES CRUCIAL

TEST

74. PETYA AND NONPETYA

RANSOMWARE

75. TECHPLOMACY

76. CORRIDOR OF HOPE: ON THE

KARTARPUR PROPOSAL

77. TIGER RELOCATION

78. SYED MODI INTERNATIONAL

BADMINTON: SAMEER VERMA

DEFENDS TITLE , SAINA LOOSES IN

FINAL

79. 27 EU LEADERS APPROVE TERMS

OF BREXIT DEAL

80. 106 JUDICIAL POSTINGS CLEARED

IN A MONTH

81. ANDAMAN & NICOBAR ISLANDS:

HOME TO A TENTH OF INDIA’S FAUNA

SPECIES

82. HANTAVIRUSES

83. HOME IS THE DEADLIEST PLACE

FOR WOMEN, SAYS UN STUDY

84. 'MISINFORMATION' AS WORD OF

THE YEAR

85. RBI EASES ECB HEDGING NORMS

FOR COMPANIES

86. BUYBACK

87. UKRAINE DECLARES MARTIAL LAW

88. CHINESE ACADEMIC CLAIMS TO

HAVE GENE-EDITED TWINS

89. NASA'S INSIGHT SPACECRAFT

LANDS ON RED PLANET

90. DEATH PENALTY FREAKISHLY

IMPOSED: JUSTICE KURIAN

91. TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION: ON

DAMAGE CAUSED BY CYCLONE

GAJA

92. NORWAY’S CARLSEN BEATS

CARUANA TO DEFEND CHESS

WORLD TITLE

93. ISRO'S PSLV-C43 SUCCESSFULLY

PLACES HYSIS

94. 51 PILOT WHALES DIE IN ANOTHER

MASS STRANDING IN NEW ZEALAND

95. PANDAVANI

96. PHAD PAINTING

97. POWADA

98. OPERATION SMILE

99. GSP

100. LIST OF CENTRALLY

SPONSORED SCHEMES (not

exhaustive)

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MAHARASHTRA REFORMS THE APMC ACT

With this Maharshtra has become second state

after Bihar that amended the APMC ACT

comprehensively in 2006.

The Maharashtra government has promulgated

an ordinance deregulating all agricultural

produce from the APMC Act. This means

farmers can now sell all agri-commodities

outside regulated APMC markets in the state.

The changes have been made in accordance

with the Centre’s Model Agricultural Produce

and Livestock Market Act 2017, he said adding

that the scope of the Act in the state has been

widened to include promotion and facilitation

instead of regulation.

Some of the other measures also include

establishing markets of national importance

(MNI). At present, Asia’s largest agri market

Azadpur Mandi, Delhi is the only Market of

National Importance (MNI) in the country. Now

Maharashtra has taken the lead to frame a

policy to encourage and grant the status of

Markets of National Importance to some of the

Agriculture Produce Market Committees

(APMCs) in the state.

The move aims to strengthen the agricultural

marketing system in the state and encourage

export and trading among states. If any APMC

receives more than 30 % arrivals of the total

from two other states then that committee

would be declared as APMC of national

importance.

This means that markets such as Mumbai,

Pune, Nashik and Nagpur APMC’s may fit into

this criterion. Therefore instead of a elected

body on the APMCs which is the current case,

in such markets a nominated board would

come into existence.

EASE OF DOING BUSINESS INDEX 2018

India’s ranking in the World Bank’s – Ease of

Doing Business Index 2018, has made a giant

leap of 30 positions – from 130th in 2016 to the

100 th spot in 2017. This jump can be

attributed to major improvement in significant

parameters such as starting a business,

dealing with construction permits, resolving

insolvency, getting electricity and getting credit,

among other parameters.

The World Bank’s ‘Doing Business 2018 —

Reforming to Create Jobs’ report ranks 190

countries based on a combined score on 10

parameters. According to the report, India

features among the top 10 countries that have

shown a marked improvement this year in six

out of 10 ‘Doing Business’ indicators. This

comes as a positive news after 2016, when

India moved up only by a single position from

131 to 130. Additionally, India’s combined or

Distance-to- Frontier (DTF) score also

witnessed a spike - from 56.05 in the previous

year to 60.76 now, which reflects the country

has improved in absolute terms as well.

INDIA AS “THE TARIFF KING”

US President Donald Trump described India as

“the tariff king”, accusing it of imposing

“tremendously high” tariffs on American

products.

While the recent tariff hikes may have been

occasioned by the burgeoning current account

deficit and the fall in the rupee, they only

reinforce a growing trend of protectionism in

Asia’s third largest economy. While import

tariffs may provide the economy with short-

term relief, left uncorrected, the country’s lurch

toward protectionism could extract a steep

price in the years to come.

In order to compare the rate of protection

across countries, we use the “effective average

tariff rate” here instead of a simple average of

tariffs.

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Among members of the BRICS grouping—

Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa—

India has the highest effective tariff rates on

food items, automobiles and industrial inputs.

In consumer goods and capital goods, Brazil

has the highest effective tariff rates . The lack

of clarity in information on tariffs at a product

level in India adds a further layer of protection,

according to some scholars.

Data from the Global Trade Alert (GTA)

database, which attempts to record all trade-

related measures by public authorities, and not

just tariffs, shows that India and the US have

introduced the most trade restrictions so far in

2018.

No wonder then that it was not just Trump who

was complaining about India’s trade policies. A

recent World Bank report accused India of

increasingly resorting to trade remedy

measures such as anti-dumping and safeguard

actions. According to the report, between 2011

and 2015, India initiated around 10% of global

anti-dumping investigations and 17% of new

safeguard investigations.

The lurch toward protectionism is especially

worrying because it threatens to undo more

than two decades of trade liberalization

measures that have powered India’s growth

over the past quarter century, boosting

incomes and helping cut poverty levels.

CORE SECTORS OF ECONOMY

Core Industries are those industries whose

products are essential for the economy and for

other industries as well.

1. Cement

2. Coal

3. Electricity

4. Crude oil

5. Refinery products

6. Fertilizers

7. Steel

8. Natural gas

THE INDEX OF INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION (IIP)

The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is an

index for India which details out the growth of

various sectors in an economy such as mineral

mining, electricity and manufacturing. The all

India IIP is a composite indicator that

measures the short-term changes in the

volume of production of a basket of industrial

products during a given period with respect to

that in a chosen base period. It is compiled and

published monthly by the central statistical

organisation (CSO), Ministry of Statistics and

Programme Implementation six weeks after the

reference month ends.

The level of the Index of Industrial Production

(IIP) is an abstract number, the magnitude of

which represents the status of production in the

industrial sector for a given period of time as

compared to a reference period of time.

The base year was at one time fixed at 1993–

94 so that year was assigned an index level of

100. The current base year is 2011-2012.

The Eight Core Industries comprise nearly

40.27% of the weight of items included in the

Index of Industrial Production (IIP). These are

Electricity , steel, refinery products, crude oil,

coal, cement, natural gas and fertilisers.

CREDIT RATING AGENCIES IN INDIA

Credit Rating Agencies (CRA) assess

creditworthiness of organisation and different

entities. In simple words, these agencies

analyse a debtor’s ability to repay the debt and

also rate their credit risk. All the credit rating

agencies in India are regulated by SEBI (Credit

Rating Agencies) Regulations, 1999 of the

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Securities and Exchange Board of India Act,

1992.

There are a total of six credit agencies in India

viz, CRISIL, CARE, ICRA, SMREA, Brickwork

Rating, and India Rating and Research Pvt.

Ltd.

Credit rating agencies assign ratings to an

organization or an entity. The entities that are

rated by credit rating agencies comprise

companies, state governments, non-profit

organisations, countries, securities, special

purpose entities, and local governmental

bodies. Credit rating agencies take into

consideration several factors like the financial

statements, level and type of debt, lending and

borrowing history, ability to repay the debt, and

the past debts of the entity before rating their

credit. Once a credit rating agency rates the

entities, it provides additional inputs to the

investor following which the investor analyses

and takes a sound investment decision. Poor

credit rating indicates that the entity is at a high

risk of defaulting. The credit ratings that are

given to the entities serve as a benchmark for

financial market regulations.

NASA RETIRES KEPLER SPACE TELESCOPE

After nine years in deep space collecting data

that indicate our sky to be filled with billions of

hidden planets – more planets even than stars

– NASA’s Kepler space telescope has run out

of fuel needed for further science operations.

NASA has decided to retire the spacecraft

within its current, safe orbit, away from Earth

on 30th October, 2018. Kepler leaves a legacy

of more than 2,600 planet discoveries from

outside our solar system, many of which could

be promising places for life.

Kepler has opened our eyes to the diversity of

planets that exist in our galaxy. The most

recent analysis of Kepler’s discoveries

concludes that 20 to 50 percent of the stars

visible in the night sky are likely to have small,

possibly rocky, planets similar in size to Earth,

and located within the habitable zone of their

parent stars. That means they’re located at

distances from their parent stars where liquid

water – a vital ingredient to life as we know it –

might pool on the planet surface.

Launched on March 6, 2009, the Kepler space

telescope combined cutting-edge techniques in

measuring stellar brightness with the largest

digital camera outfitted for outer space

observations at that time. Originally positioned

to stare continuously at 150,000 stars in one

star-studded patch of the sky in the

constellation Cygnus, Kepler took the first

survey of planets in our galaxy and became the

agency's first mission to detect Earth-size

planets in the habitable zones of their stars.

STATUE OF UNITY

The Statue of Unity is a colossal statue of

Indian statesman and independence activist

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1875–1950) in the

state of Gujarat, India. It is the world's tallest

statue with a height of 182 metres (597 ft). It is

located on a river island facing the Sardar

Sarovar Dam on the river Narmada in

Kevadiya colony, 100 kilometres (62 mi)

southeast of the city of Vadodara.

The Statue of Unity is the world's tallest statue

at 182 metres (597 ft). It rises 54 metres (177

ft) higher than the previous record holder, the

Spring Temple Buddha in China's Henan

province. Within India, the record was earlier

held by the 41 m (135 ft) statue of Hanuman at

the Paritala Anjaneya Temple near Vijayawada

in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The statue can

be seen within a 7 km (4.3 mi) radius.

The monument is constructed on a river island

named Sadhu Bet, 3.2 km (2.0 mi) away from

and facing the Narmada Dam downstream.

The statue and its surroundings occupy more

than 2 hectares (4.9 acres), and are

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surrounded by a 12 km (7.5 mi) long artificial

lake formed by the Garudeshwar weir

downstream on the Narmada river.

DELHI TB SUMMIT: WHO

New Delhi, 14 March 2018: Tracking progress

to eliminate tuberculosis, Member countries of

WHO South-East Asia Region today committed

to further intensifying efforts to ensure rapid

and concrete progress to End TB by 2030.

In a statement adopted at the Delhi End TB

Summit here, member countries unanimously

agreed to actualizing and intensifying essential

actions agreed to in the Delhi Call to Action which was adopted in March 2017 to

accelerate efforts to End TB in the Region,

host to one fourth of the global population but a

disproportionate 46% of the global TB burden.

The Member countries of the Region stressed

their firm intent to collectively reach out to 2

million missing TB cases and 150 000

multidrug-resistance cases by 2020 and

implement a response that is demonstrably

adequate for ending TB.

They also committed to universal access to

comprehensive, integrated TB care and

prevention services, to achieve universal

health coverage as committed to in the

Sustainable Development Goals, by enabling

the best possible care to each and every

person, including migrants, the aged and other

high-risk populations, living with any form of TB

including drug-resistant TB and TB-HIV co-

infections.

ASIA BIBI TO LEAVE PAKISTAN Pakistan Christians pray for Asia Bibi, a Asia

Bibi, the Pakistani Christian woman acquitted

of blasphemy charges on Wednesday, plans to

leave the country, her family said on Thursday,

as radical Islamists mounted rallies for a

second day against the verdict, blocking roads

and burning tyres in protest. The developments

followed a landmark move by Pakistan’s

Supreme Court that overturned the 2010

conviction against her.

US-MEXICO BORDER WALL The border separating Mexico and the United

States is the most frequently crossed

international boundary in the world, with

approximately 350 million legal crossings

taking place annually. There are 48 U.S.–

Mexico border crossings, with 330 ports of

entry. At these points of entry, people trying to

get into the U.S. are required to open their

bags for inspection. Border crossings take

place by roads, pedestrian walkways, railroads

and ferries. From west to east, below is a list of

the border city "twinnings"; cross-border

municipalities connected by one or more legal

border crossings.

In 2016, Donald Trump, then the Republican

presidential nominee in the then forthcoming

U.S. election repeatedly stated that he wanted

to build a wall along the border, for the purpose

of immigration control. He declared that Mexico

would be forced to pay for the entire wall.

Following his Inauguration on January 20,

2017, on January 25 President Trump signed

Executive Order 13767 to enable the building

of the wall. Shortly afterwards, the Mexican

President stated that Mexico will not pay for the

wall. Trump had planned to meet Mexican

President Enrique Peña Nieto on January 27 in

Washington, D.C. to discuss topics including

border security. The meeting was cancelled by

Peña Nieto, and shortly after, Trump

announced that he intended to impose a 20%

tariff on Mexican goods to effectively pay for

the wall.

FATHER OF WEB SEES SPLIT OF WEB GIANTS

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Silicon Valley technology giants such as

Facebook and Google have grown so

dominant they may need to be broken up,

unless challengers or changes in taste reduce

their clout, the inventor of the World Wide Web

told Reuters.

The digital revolution has spawned a handful of

U.S.-based technology companies since the

1990s that now have a combined financial and

cultural power greater than most sovereign

states.

Tim Berners-Lee, a London-born computer

scientist who invented the Web in 1989, said

he was disappointed with the current state of

the internet, following scandals over the abuse

of personal data and the use of social media to

spread hate.

US SUPREME COURT ON INDIAN POWER PLANT

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday

appeared unlikely to revive a lawsuit by

villagers in India seeking to hold a Washington-

based international financial institution

responsible for environmental damage they

blame on a power plant it financed.

The justices heard an hour of arguments in an

appeal by the villagers of a lower court ruling

that the International Finance Corp was

immune from such lawsuits under U.S. law.

Based on questions asked by several justices,

the court looks likely to rule in favor of the IFC,

which is part of the World Bank Group.

IFC provided $450 million in loans in 2008 to

help construct the coal-fired Tata Mundra

Power Plant in Gujarat, India. IFC loans

include provisions requiring that certain

environmental standards are met.

₹1 LAKH-CRORE IN OCTOBER GST COLLECTION

Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections

crossed the psychological barrier of ₹1 lakh-

crore in October, coming in at ₹1,00,710 crore,

the government announced on Thursday. The

collections in October 2018 were 20.8% higher

than the ₹83,346 crore seen in October 2017.

PRIVATE MEMBER BILL ON RAM TEMPLE

A private member’s Bill urging the construction

of a Ram temple in Ayodhya, by BJP MP

Rakesh Sinha, is in the works, to be pushed for

the winter session of Parliament.

Mr. Sinha, close to the RSS and author of a

well-regarded biography of RSS founder K.B.

Hedgewar, also declared, in a series of tweets,

that he would be canvassing support for his Bill

from Opposition leaders, including Congress

president Rahul Gandhi.

PRIVATE MEMBER'S BILL A private member's bill in a parliamentary

system of government is a bill (proposed law)

introduced into a legislature by a legislator who

is not acting on behalf of the executive branch.

The designation "private member's bill" is used

in most Westminster System jurisdictions, in

which a "private member" is any member of

parliament (MP) who is not a member of the

cabinet (executive). Other labels may be used

for the concept in other parliamentary systems.

In India, of the 300 odd Private Members’ Bills

introduced in the 14th Lok Sabha, barely 4%

were discussed; 96% lapsed without even a

single debate in the House. Till date,

Parliament has passed 14 Private Members’

Bills. Five of these were passed in 1956 alone

and 47 years after passing ‘The Supreme

Court (Enlargement of Criminal Appellate

Jurisdiction) Bill, 1968’ that became an Act on

9 August 1970. Rajya Sabha has passed

Rights of Transgender Persons Bill, 2014 on

April 24, 2015, which is pending to be passed

in Lok Sabha.

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INDIA PROTESTS CHINA-PAKISTAN BUS VIA PoK

India on Thursday reiterated its opposition to a

proposed luxury bus service between Pakistan

and China that would pass through parts of

Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan

— territory that India claims — terming it “a

violation of India’s sovereignty”, a day after it

had summoned a Chinese diplomat to South

Block to lodge a strong protest against the

initiative.

“We have lodged strong protests with China

and Pakistan on the proposed bus service that

will operate through areas of Pakistan

Occupied Jammu and Kashmir State under the

so-called ‘China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’,”

the spokesperson for the Ministry of External

Affairs (MEA) told reporters. “Any such bus

service through Pakistan Occupied Jammu &

Kashmir State will be a violation of India’s

sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

ROMANCE OF KURINJI For the rolling hills and the rocky slopes of

Kodaikanal, 2018 has been significant for they

came alive with the mass blossoming of the

Kurunci (pronounced as Kurinji) flower. The

flowering happens every 12 years, a

phenomenon known as Plietesials.

Strobilanthes kunthiana is endemic to the

upper Palani High Ranges and to the upper

ranges of the South Western Ghats.

Sangam literature has documented the Kurinji

in its Agam or love poetry. From ancient times,

the Kurinji flower became part of the religious

beliefs, traditions and folklore. The terrain

being presided over by “the red speared God

of War, youth and beauty” – Murugan — Kurinji

and the deity have become synonymous.

Certain tribes of the hills believe that Lord

Murugan married Valli (daughter of a tribal

chieftain) by garlanding her with Kurinji flowers.

So they do not touch the flowers when they are

in bloom, but wait till it withers, to use the wood

as firewood. It is their way of conserving them.

PALAU TO BAN SUNSCREEN AS IT TRIES TO SAVE ITS CORAL REEFS

ban sunscreen as it tries to save its coral reefs.

In an attempt to protect the coral reefs that

divers so admire they have dubbed them the

underwater Serengeti, the Pacific nation of

Palau will soon ban many types of sunscreen.

President Tommy Remengesau Jr. last week

signed legislation that bans “reef-toxic”

sunscreen from 2020. Banned sunscreens will

be confiscated from tourists who carry them

into the country, and merchants selling the

banned products will be fined up to $1,000.

Mr. Remengesau said in a statement that the

penalties find the right balance between

“educating tourists and scaring them away.”

The law defines reef-toxic sunscreen as

containing any one of 10 chemicals, including

oxybenzone, and states that other chemicals

may also be banned. Mr. Remengesau said a

big impetus for the ban was a 2017 report

which found that sunscreen products were

widespread in Palau’s famed Jellyfish Lake,

which was closed for more than a year due to

declining jellyfish numbers before being

recently reopened.

Palau, located east of the Philippines and north

of Indonesia, is home to 21,000 people and

has an economy that relies on tourism and

fishing. It has a compact of free association

with the U.S.

RETALIATORY TARIFFS PUT OFF

India has, for the third time, postponed the

implementation of higher tariffs on some goods

imported from the U.S. to December 17, a

government order said. Angered by U.S.

refusal to exempt it from new steel and

aluminium tariffs, India decided in June to raise

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the import tax on some U.S. products,

including almonds, walnuts and apples.

CHOKED BY SMOG: ON AIR POLLUTION

The UN Environment Programme’s recent

report titled ‘Air Pollution in Asia and the

Pacific: Science-Based Solutions’ has sounded

a warning, pointing out that only 8% of the

population in the countries of the region get to

breathe air of acceptable quality. One study of

degradation of Delhi’s air over a 10-year period

beginning 2000 estimated premature mortality

to have risen by as much as 60%. With the

steady growth in the population of the capital

and other cities, the trauma is set to worsen.

Farm stubble burning is a major contributor to

the problem, and its footprint may be growing

because of wider use of mechanical harvesters

that is producing more waste. An innovative

approach could be to use climate change funds

to turn farm residues into a resource, using

technological options such as converting them

into biofuels and fertilizers. From an urban

development perspective, large cities should

reorient their investments to prioritise public

transport, favouring electric mobility.

U.S. RESTORES IRAN SANCTIONS LIFTED UNDER OBAMA NUCLEAR DEAL

In a statement issued on Friday night, Mr.

Trump said, “Our objective is to force the

regime into a clear choice- either abandon its

destructive behavior or continue down the path

toward economic disaster.”

The Trump administration on Friday restored

U.S. sanctions on Iran that had been lifted

under the 2015 nuclear deal, but carved out

exemptions for eight countries that can still

import oil from the Islamic Republic without

penalty.

The sanctions take effect Monday and cover

Iran’s shipping, financial and energy sectors.

They are the second batch the administration

has re-imposed since Mr. Trump withdrew from

the landmark accord in May.

The 2015 deal, one of former President Barack

Obama’s biggest diplomatic achievements,

gave Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief in

exchange for curbs on its nuclear program,

which many believed it was using to develop

atomic weapons. Mr. Trump repeatedly

denounced the agreement as the “worst ever”

negotiated by the United States and said it

gave Iran too much in return for too little.

But proponents as well as the other parties to

the deal Britain, China, France, Germany,

Russia and the European Union have

vehemently defended it. The Europeans have

mounted a drive to save the agreement without

the U.S., fearing that the new sanctions will

drive Iran to pull out and resume all of its

nuclear work.

INDIA, ZIMBABWE INK 6 AGREEMENTS AS VENKAIAH NAIDU MEETS PRESIDENT MNANGAGWA India and Zimbabwe on Saturday signed six

signed agreements, including on mining,

Information and communications technology

(ICT), visa waiver and traditional medicine as

Vice President Venkaiah Naidu met Zimbabwe

President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his

deputy Kembo Mohadi and held wide-ranging

talks here.

Mr. Naidu arrived here on Friday night on the

second leg of his six-day three-nation tour to

Africa, which aims at deepening India’s

strategic cooperation with Botswana,

Zimbabwe and Malawi.

PLASTIC WASTE MANAGEMENT RULES, 2016

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The Government has notified the Plastic Waste

Management Rules, 2016, in suppression of

the earlier Plastic Waste (Management and

Handling) Rules, 2011. The Minister of State

for Environment, Forest and Climate Change,

Shri Prakash Javadekar, said that the minimum

thickness of plastic carry bags has been

increased from 40 microns to 50 microns. He

stated that 15, 000 tonnes of plastic waste is

generated every day, out of which 9, 000

tonnes is collected and processed, but 6, 000

tonnes of plastic waste is not being collected.

Shri Javadekar also said that the rules, which

were admissible upto municipal areas, have

now been extended to all villages. The Minister

said that notifying the new Plastic Waste

Management Rules is a part of the revamping

of all Waste Management Rules. This will help

in achieving the vision of our Prime Minister of

Swacchh Bharat and cleanliness is the

essence of health and tourism, Shri Javadekar

added. It also includes the Extended Producers

Responsibility (EPR).

GSAT-11 RETURNS TO GUIANA FOR DECEMBER LAUNCH

GSAT-11, the heaviest Indian communication

satellite built to date, for faster Internet

connectivity, is back once again at the Guiana

Space Centre for an early December launch. It

returns to the South American port for the

second time in six months after it was taken

back to Bengaluru in April for inspections.

K. Sivan, Chairman of the Indian Space

Research Organisation (ISRO) and Secretary,

Department of Space, confirmed on

Wednesday that the 5,700 kg spacecraft was

shipped out of Bengaluru last week and has

reached the European launch port.

“GSAT-11 is already in Kourou. It was flown

out last week. We are targeting December 4 for

its launch,” Dr. Sivan said. Arianespace,

ISRO’s long-time European launch services

contractor, has paired GSAT-11 with South

Korea’s weather satellite GEO-Kompsat 2A.

The two are slated to go to space on the same

Ariane 5 launch vehicle, numbered VA246.

Arianespace's CEO Stephane Israel tweeted a

pictorial welcome on October 29 local time as

the satellite arrived at the port halfway across

the globe by a special Russian Antonov cargo

flight. GSAT-11 is built to provide the Indian

region superior communication and 12 GBPS

connectivity with its multiple spot beams in Ka

and Ku bands.

ILLINOIS STATE BRACES ITSELF FOR ALL-INDIA CONGRESSIONAL RACE

Of the about 500 Congressional and

gubernatorial races this Tuesday, there is one

of unique and special relevance to India. The

8th Congressional District in Illinois (IL-08) is

witnessing a race in which two people of Indian

origin — both first-generation immigrants —

are competing against each other for a seat in

the U.S. House of Representatives.

Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, the incumbent,

a Harvard-educated lawyer and erstwhile

businessman, goes up against Jitendra

Diganvker, a businessman and Uber driver,

running on the Republican ticket.

KA, KU AND HTS

As more of the world migrates towards using

wireless technology each day, optimal, high-

speed, and reliable wireless connectivity has

become the need of the hour. The advanced

High Throughput Satellites (HTS) have been

designed to take care of these requirements.

HTS technology boasts an unprecedented

bandwidth capability, and is widely viewed as

the future of satellite communications. Typically

for HTS systems, the Ku-band or the Ka-band

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of the electromagnetic spectrum are used.

In recent years owing to the explosion in

Internet based applications, the demands for

higher satellite capacity has skyrocketed. The

capacity of the lower Ku-band of the spectrum

is falling short, and investments are now being

made in the use of the Ka-band. These bands

are not interchangeable, and each has its own

advantages and disadvantages, which makes it

suitable for one set of applications and

unsuitable for another.

High Throughput Satellites (HTS)

In the High Throughput Satellites system, the

coverage area is divided into small regions

known as spots. Each spot is then served by a

spot beam. This is unlike the conventional

system where one large beam is used to serve

the entire area of coverage.

Each spot beam covers an area that is only

about 1% to 2 % the size of the conventional

beam. This allows these beams to provide high

signal strength as well as gain. Thus overall

performance is better than that of the

conventional system.

Newer advanced technology also allows more

accurate antennas to be built and thus the

spots can be made smaller. This makes it

possible to reuse frequencies multiple times,

making HTS satellites more efficient.

Ku-band

The Ku band refers to the band of

electromagnetic frequencies in the range of 12-

18 GHz. It is located directly below the K-band.

This band is mainly used for fixed as well as

broadcast satellite communication services. It

is also used in specific applications such as in

communications between space shuttle and

the International Space Station (ISS), as well

as radar applications.

Ka-band

The Ka-band of the electromagnetic spectrum

comprises frequencies in the range of 26.5-40

GHz. This band is located directly above the K-

band.

The frequencies in this band are used for

close-range military radars, vehicle speed

detection, and few other specific applications.

NASA's Kepler mission utilizes frequencies in

this band to down-link scientific data collected

by the space telescope.

Ka-band Vs. Ku-band

Availability of Spectrum

The C-band and Ku band of the

electromagnetic spectrum have been around

for a long time. As such, there are an extensive

number of satellites and services which use

frequencies in these bands.

Compared to this, the use of frequencies in the

Ka-band has only recently started gathering

steam. This fact, coupled with the frequency-

reuse capability of the multiple spot beam

technology of the HTS, increases the usable

spectrum that is available.

Coverage Area

The Ka-band satellites which are currently in

orbit serve only specific and limited

geographical regions. For example, the ViaSat-

1 launched in 2011, only provides coverage to

North America. Similarly, the KA-Sat launched

in 2010 serves only Europe, the Mediterranean

basin, and small regions in the Middle East.

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Obviously, none of these are a viable option for

ships or intercontinental airplanes, which need

to traverse the non-covered oceanic zone.

Also, due to the receding polar ice caps, in

recent years, vessels have begun traversing

the now navigable Northeast and Northwest

passages. The current Ka-band satellites are

incapable of providing coverage to them.

Ku-band satellites, on the other hand, are more

in number and have a much wider coverage

area in comparison to Ka-band satellites.

Further, satellites communicating over the

lower L-band, presently are a more viable

option for most ocean-going vessels.

Interference

The Ku-band satellites are often placed as little

as two degrees apart from each other in the

Earth's orbit. This increases the chances of

adjacent satellite interference.

The Ka-band satellites are placed further apart

from each other, and therefore, the chances of

antennas transmitting to non-targeted satellites

and interference between signals is much less.

Antenna Sizes

The size of antenna is inversely proportional to

the frequency band of the signal it transmits or

receives. Hence, smaller-sized antennas can

be used for the systems that operate on the

Ka-band as compared to the ones used for the

Ku-band. Since the antenna sizes are smaller,

their cost too would be lower. They should also

be easier to install.

Rain Fade

The frequencies in the Ka-band are nearly

double that of the frequencies in the Ku-band.

Since wavelength is inversely proportional to

frequency, the wavelengths of signals in the

Ka-band are much smaller than those of the

Ku-band. This makes them more susceptible to

bad weather and other atmospheric

disruptions.

Rains drops are known to absorb signals

having frequency above 11 GHz. This effect is

known as rain-fade. Snow and ice too absorb

these high frequency signals. Both Ku-band

and Ka-band signals suffer from rain fade;

however, the fading is larger for Ka-band

signals owing to their higher frequencies.

Backup

Since there are a number of satellites currently

in orbit which function on the Ku-band, there

won't be a problem finding a backup satellite to

maintain a continuous link in case the main

satellite develops a fault.

However, in comparison, there are far fewer

satellites that function in the Ka-band of the

spectrum, and the ones that do, are often part

of a closed network. So, in the event of failure,

it will be very difficult to find a backup satellite

to maintain the communication link.

PACIFIC ARCHIPELAGO VOTES ON INDEPENDENCE FROM FRANCE

Observers expect a majority to favor remaining

a part of France, based on opinion polls and

previous election results. in New Caledonia are

deciding whether the French territory in the

South Pacific should break free from the

European country that claimed it in the mid-

19th century.

The polls opened on Sunday morning in a

referendum that’s a milestone in the process of

the archipelago’s three-decade-long

decolonization one that will help define New

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Caledonia’s future as an independent country

or as a continuing part of France. More than

174,000 registered voters are invited to answer

the question- “Do you want New Caledonia to

gain full sovereignty and become

independent?”

INDIA, CHINA AMONG 8 COUNTRIES ALLOWED TO BUY IRANIAN OIL: MIKE POMPEO

India is one of eight countries to receive

temporary exemptions from U.S. sanctions on

Iran that came into effect on Monday,

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said.

Addressing a joint press briefing with Treasury

Secretary Steven Mnuchin in Washington on

Monday, Mr. Pompeo said, “We have decided

to issue temporary allotments to a handful of

countries, responsible to the specific

circumstances and to ensure a well supplied oil

market. The U.S. will be granting these

exemptions to China, India, Italy, Greece,

Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey. In the

last fiscal year India, which imports over 80%

of its oil, sourced some 10% of its oil imports,

or just over 22 million tons from Iran. The

Indian Oil Corporation is the biggest Indian

customer for Iranian oil.

TIGRESS SUNDARI CAPTURED IN ODISHA’S SATKOSIA RESERVE

The tigress will be kept in a special enclosure

set up at Raiguda inside the reserve. After

more than a fortnight of intense chase, experts

on November 6 managed to tranquilise

Sundari, the tigress brought from Madhya

Pradesh as part of tiger reintroduction

programme in Odisha’s Satkosia Tiger

Reserve. Sundari is said to have mauled two

persons in villages inside the tiger reserve.

Subsequently, residents resorted to arson

demanding the capture of the big cat.

‘SAMOSA CAUCUS’ None of the more than half a dozen new

Indian-American candidates could make it to

the House of Representatives. The so-called

‘Samosa Caucus’ - an informal group of the

Indian-Americans in the US Congress - failed

to increase its strength, even as its all four

incumbent members were re-elected to the

House of Representatives in the highly

polarised midterm elections held Tuesday.

None of the more than half a dozen new

Indian-American candidates, many of whom

caught national attention by giving tough fight

to their opponents and outraising them in the

fund raisers, could make it to the House of

Representatives, which is equivalent to Lok

Sabha in the Indian parliament.

However, Indian-Americans picked up more

seats in the State assemblies. The community

sent its member Ram Villivalam for the first

time to the Illinois Senate and also elected a

Muslim Indian-American Mujtaba Mohammed

to the North Carolina State Senate.

CHINA UNVEILS NEW 'HEAVENLY PALACE' SPACE STATION AS ISS DAYS NUMB

China unveiled on November 6 a replica of its

first permanently crewed space station, which

would replace the international community's

orbiting laboratory and symbolises the

country's major ambitions beyond Earth.

The 17-metre (55-foot) core module was a star

attraction at the biennial Airshow China in the

southern coastal city of Zhuhai, the country's

main aerospace industry exhibition. The model

represented the living and working space of the

Tiangong — or "Heavenly Palace" — which will

also have two other modules for scientific

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experiments and will be equipped with solar

panels.

Three astronauts will be permanently stationed

in the 60-tonne orbiting lab, which will enable

the crew to conduct biological and microgravity

research. Assembly is expected to be

completed around 2022 and the station would

have a lifespan of around 10 years.

The International Space Station — a

collaboration between the United States,

Russia, Canada, Europe and Japan — has

been in operation since 1998 but is due to be

retired in 2024.

China will then have the only space station in

orbit, though it will be much smaller than the

ISS which weighs 400 tonnes and is as large

as a football pitch. The country announced in

May that the lab would be open to "all

countries" to conduct science experiments.

ASEAN MEMBER COUNTRIES OF RCEP OFFER INDIA CONCESSION

India can open up 83% of its market against

the earlier 92%. Several Asian member

countries of the proposed Regional

Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

have offered India a significant concession on

the extent to which it needs to open up its

markets, in a bid to encourage it to join the

partnership quickly, according to a diplomat

from Singapore.

The RCEP is a proposed trade agreement

between the 10 Association of Southeast Asian

Nations (ASEAN) countries and their six free

trade agreement partners, namely Australia,

China, India, Japan, Korea, and New Zealand.

The grouping would comprise 25% of global

GDP, 30% of global trade, 26% of FDI flows,

and 45% of the population.

“The ASEAN countries are keen to have India

as part of the partnership and have made India

a concessional offer of opening up only about

83% of its market, as compared to the original

92% that the RCEP agreement stipulated,” the

Singaporean diplomat said on condition of

anonymity

KAMALADEVI CHATTOPADHYAY Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay (3 April 1903 – 29

October 1988) was an Indian social reformer

and freedom fighter. She was most

remembered for her contribution to the Indian

independence movement; for being the driving

force behind the renaissance of Indian

handicrafts, hand looms, and theater in

independent India; and for upliftment of the

socio-economic standard of Indian women by

pioneering the co-operation.

In 1926, she met the suffragette Margaret E.

Cousins, the founder of All India Women's

Conference (AIWC), who inspired her to run for

the Madras Provincial Legislative Assembly.

In the following year, she founded the All-India

Women's Conference (AIWC) and became its

first Organizing Secretary. In the following

years, AIWC, grew up to become a national

organisation of repute, with branches and

voluntary programs run throughout the nation,

and work steadfastly for legislative reforms.

During her tenure, she travelled extensively to

many European nations and was inspired to

initiate several social reform and community

welfare programs, and set up educational

institutions, run for the woman, and by women.

Another shining example in this series was the

formation of Lady Irwin College for Home

Sciences, one of its kind college for women of

its times, in New Delhi. She was a prolific

writer. Inner Recesses, Outer Spaces:

Memoirs, 1986 was her last published book.

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NASA’S PARKER SOLAR PROBE PROBE

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe – mankind’s

mission to touch the Sun – is alive and well

after its first close encounter with our star’s

surface. The probe skimmed by the Sun at just

15 million miles from its surface, breaking the

previous record was set by Helios B in 1976.

The manoeuvre exposed the spacecraft to

intense heat and solar radiation in a complex

solar wind environment, NASA said in a

statement. “Parker Solar Probe was designed

to take care of itself and its precious payload

during this close approach, with no control from

us on Earth — and now we know it

succeeded,” said Thomas Zurbuchen,

associate administrator of NASA’s Science

Mission Directorate at the agency

headquarters in Washington.

NOT IN DIRECT TALKS WITH TALIBAN: MEA

No compulsion to participate, says Ministry

after its turnaround raises queries. Facing a

barrage of questions on its sudden shift in

policy on attending talks with the Taliban, the

Centre on Friday clarified that its delegation at

the second 12-nation ‘Moscow format meeting

of consultations on Afghanistan’ would not hold

direct talks with the insurgent group there.

“We have said we will be taking part in a

meeting on Afghanistan which is hosted by

Russia; and we decided that our participation

in the talks would be at the non-official level,”

the MEA’s official spokesperson Raveesh

Kumar told reporters. “But we didn’t say

anywhere that there will be talks with the

Taliban.”

The government said its policy on Afghanistan

was “consistent”, despite its decision to send

two former diplomats, Amar Sinha and TCA

Raghavan, to the talks. It would mark the first

time an Indian delegation would be at the table

with a Taliban delegation from its political office

in Doha.

INDIA APPRECIATES U.S. WAIVER ON NEW DELHI-TEHRAN ENERGY TRADE

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday

expressed appreciation for the United States’

waiver on India-Iran energy trade and the

Chabahar Port project. The spokesperson of the

Ministry said the port will be of importance in

helping the situation in Afghanistan, but reiterated

that India will continue to import Iranian energy.

“India is a major importer of crude oil from Iran. This

is very important for our own energy security

needs. We appreciate the fact that the U.S. has

shown understanding of our position and has said

that its intention is not to hurt India,” said Raveesh

Kumar, spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs,

adding that India is studying the details of the

exemption.

The formal response from India came days after

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared a

waiver for India and seven other countries on

energy trade. Iraq has also received a waiver for

the import of electricity from Tehran.

THE CREDIT STIMULUS FOR MSMES

The Centre has announced an important credit

stimulus package for micro, small, and medium

enterprises (MSMEs). Prime Minister Narendra

Modi has promised the sanction of business

loans of up to ₹1 crore within a time frame of

59 minutes, in order to encourage faster credit

flow to MSMEs. These companies will also

receive an interest subvention of 2% under the

scheme and support from public sector units,

which will now be mandated to make at least

25% of their overall purchases from MSMEs. It

is worth noting that MSMEs, account for 30%

of India’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Further, in the aftermath of the IL&FS crisis,

which has affected the amount of lending done

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by non-banking financial companies to the

MSME sector, the government would be

looking at the scheme as a tool to improve

credit flow and the pace of job creation in the

economy.

The scheme has signs of state-led economic

planning written all over it. The biggest risk of a

credit stimulus is the misallocation of

productive economic resources. Pumping extra

credit into MSMEs now may well lead to a

temporary boom and enable a feel-good

atmosphere in the run-up to elections, but it

can lead to a painful bust when the stimulus

ends some day. Conceptually, the Prime

Minister’s latest credit scheme is no different

from the MUDRA loan scheme, which has

been troubled by soaring bad loans.

WRESTLING: BAJARANG PUNIA IS WORLD NO. 1 World championships silver medallist wrestler

Bajrang Punia became the first Indian to

secure the No. 1 slot in the World rankings

issued on Saturday. According to the latest

United World Wrestling (UWW) rankings, Punia

is now the top-ranked wrestler in men’s

freestyle 65kg category.

‘EU SHOULD PAY MORE FOR DEFENCE’ Meeting for talks at the Elysee ahead of

commemorations to mark the 100th

anniversary of the end of the First World

War, Mr. Macron welcomed Mr. Trump

with a firm handshake, but there appeared

to be less immediate warmth between

them than in the past.

“We want to help Europe but it has to be

fair. Right now the burden sharing has

been largely on the United States.” Mr.

Macron echoed those sentiments, saying

that he wanted Europe to bear a greater

share of the defence costs within NATO, a

point he has made repeatedly since taking

office, alongside calls for Europe to

develop its own military capability.

Discussing the threat from cyberhacking

and outside meddling in the electoral

process, Mr. Macron said Europe needed

to protect itself against China, Russia “and

even the United States”.

RUSSIA STEPS INTO AFGHAN PEACE EFFORTS The Taliban met with members of

Afghanistan’s High Peace Council on

Friday in a conference organised by the

Russian government in Moscow. This is

the second such meeting with the

insurgent group being organised by

international stakeholders in a bid to push

peace talks between the Taliban and the

Afghan government.

The Taliban reportedly met with U.S.

special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad last

month, to start negotiations on the terms

of a peace deal. Both meetings, however,

did not see the participation of the Afghan

government. “President (Ashraf) Ghani is

committed to peace and has taken bold

steps. However, the Taliban did not

reciprocate,” a source close to the Afghan

President said on condition of anonymity.

Mr. Ghani did make several efforts to get

the Taliban on the negotiating table,

including a three-day Id ceasefire last year

KHADA DUPATTA

Over the past few days, a few billboards

have popped up in the city skyscape

showing what appears like a slinky version

of the khada dupatta, an integral part of

the wardrobe of the erstwhile royalty and

nobility in Hyderabad. Worn on the first

day of an elaborate wedding in

Hyderabad, the khada dupatta with

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matching kurti choli was a sign that the girl

is now a woman.“A Hyderabadi bride is

unimaginable without the khada dupatta.

THE HUKITOLA BUILDING

A nameless 150-year-old building has

been renovated and is set to feature

prominently on Odisha’s tourism map.

Buoyed by a high tide, and buffeted by a

choppy sea, my boat from River Gobari

takes me to the tiny, uninhabited island of

Hukitola in the Bay of Bengal, off Odisha’s

coast, in just over an hour. As I hop off the

boat, I see an enormous building standing

out incongruously amid coconut trees: it is

a stony, many-arched structure, with an

odd triangular facade.

The 150-year-old building, which has

remained untouched by erosion, has

recently drawn the curiosity of heritage

conservationists. The British, who

chanced upon the island while looking for

a place to post a harbour-master for the

area, built the structure in 1865 as a

warehouse to store grain. It played a

critical role in supplying rice during the

great 1866 famine, which wiped out a third

of Odisha’s population. A section of the

building had a rainwater harvesting

system to meet the drinking water needs

of sailors.

GOLD NANOPARTICLES TARGET PROSTATE CANCER Scientists are using gold nanoparticles

that act as tumour-seeking missiles to

target prostate cancer, in a first-of-its-kind

clinical trial. The nanoparticles, or

nanoshells, are made of small layers of

silica glass formed into a sphere and

wrapped in a thin layer of gold.

The shells seek out and saturate

cancerous cells, and their advanced

vibrational properties are then harnessed

to cause the tumourous tissue to pulse

with extreme temperature when light is

applied through a laser specifically

designed to excite the particles. The

oscillation kills the cancer cells while

preserving the healthy tissue, avoiding the

nerves and urinary sphincter.

WORLD’S LARGEST BRAIN-LIKE SUPERCOMPUTER (SPINNAKER) The newly formed million-processor-core

spiking neural network architecture

(spinnaker) machine is capable of

completing more than 200 million million

actions per second, with each of its chips

having 100 million transistors.

The spinnaker machine, designed and

built in the university of manchester in the

uk, can model more biological neurons in

real time than any other machine on the

planet.

Biological neurons are basic brain cells

present in the nervous system that

communicate primarily by emitting ‘spikes’

of pure electro-chemical energy.

Neuromorphic computing uses large scale

computer systems containing electronic

circuits to mimic these spikes in a

machine. spinnaker is unique because,

unlike traditional computers, it does not

communicate by sending large amounts of

information from point a to b via a

standard network.

Researchers eventually aim to model up

to a billion biological neurons in real time

and are now a step closer. to give an idea

of scale, a mouse brain consists of around

100 million neurons and the human brain

is 1,000 times bigger than that.

One billion neurons is one per cent of the

scale of the human brain, which consists

of just under 100 billion brain cells, or

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neurons, which are all highly

interconnected via approximately one

quadrillion synapses.

It also has simulated a region of the brain

called the basal ganglia - an area affected

in parkinson’s disease, meaning it has

massive potential for neurological

breakthroughs in science such as

pharmaceutical testing.

SIMBEX

The 25th edition of the India-Singapore

bilateral naval exercise, SIMBEX, has

begun at the tri-services command in Port

Blair.

The exercise, which kicked off on

Saturday off the Andaman Sea and the

Bay of Bengal, will conclude on November

21.

“Started as basic Anti-Submarine Warfare

(ASW) exercises in 1994, today these

exercises have graduated to complex

maritime combat drills, including missile

and torpedo firings, and shore-based

intensive professional exchanges,” the

Navy said in a statement.

CENTRE APPROVES RENAMING OF 25 PLACES IN PAST ONE YEAR

The Centre has given consent to the

renaming of at least 25 towns and villages

across India in the past one year and

among the pending proposals is one for

the State of West Bengal, according to

officials.

Allahabad and Faizabad are the latest

additions to the growing list of places that

have been renamed.

Several proposals, including the renaming

of West Bengal as ‘Bangla’, are pending

with the Central government. The process

is a long-drawn one with the involvement

of multiple Central Ministries and

departments.

The Union Home Ministry has given

consent to the proposals of name change

in 25 villages and towns in different parts

of the country in last one year, a senior

Ministry official told PTI.

The proposals to change the names of

Allahabad to Prayagraj and Faizabad to

Ayodhya are yet to be received by the

Ministry from the Uttar Pradesh

government, the official said.

Some of the approved name change

proposals are: Rajahmundry as

Rajamahendravaram in East Godavari

district of Andhra Pradesh; Outer Wheeler

as APJ Abdul Kalam Island, situated in

Bhadrak district of Odisha; Arikkod as

Areekode in Malappura district of Kerala;

Pindari as Pandu-Pindara in Jind district of

Haryana; and Samphur as Sanphure in

Kiphire district of Nagaland.

The Home Ministry gives its consent to the

change of name of any place after taking no-

objections from the Ministry of Railways,

Department of Posts and Survey of India.

The name of any State changed last time was

in 2011, when Orissa became Odisha. Names

of Bombay was changed to Mumbai in 1995,

Madras to Chennai in 1996, Calcutta to

Kolkata in 2001.

ISRO ‘s MISSION VENUS A file photo of scientists monitoring the Mars

Orbiter Mission. | Photo Credit: K. Murali

Kumar

An 18-month-old pitch for what could be

the first Indian orbiter mission to Venus

has just been refreshed and relaunched,

opening it up now for international

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experiments. Tentatively marking the yet

to be named ‘Mission Venus’ for mid-

2023, the Indian Space Research

Organisation (ISRO) plans to study the

planet from an elliptical orbit that is closest

to Venus at 500 km and 60,000 km at the

farthest end — similar to its Mars Orbiter

Mission (MOM) of 2013.

‘DISGUISED UNEMPLOYMENT’

Also known as hidden unemployment, this

refers to a situation where labour that is

employed in a job is not actually utilised for the

production of goods and services. In other

words, such employment does not contribute

to the output of an economy and is thus akin to

a form of unemployment. Sometimes disguised

unemployment could simply be a form of

underemployment wherein the skills of a labour

force are not utilised to their full capacity. In

many other cases, however, such

unemployment could simply be due to the lack

of other alternative avenues of production

where the surplus labour could be employed

profitably.

QUAD

As officials from the ‘Quadrilateral’ grouping of

India, Australia, Japan and the U.S. meet in

Singapore on Wednesday, their challenge will

be to accurately describe their common

agenda. The Quad is billed as four

democracies with a shared objective to ensure

and support a “free, open and prosperous”

Indo-Pacific region.

During this round, the four countries are

expected to discuss infrastructure projects they

are working on, and building humanitarian

disaster response mechanisms. Over the past

few months, India and Japan have announced

they will combine efforts on a number of

projects in South Asia, including bridges and

roads in Bangladesh, an LNG facility in Sri

Lanka and reconstruction projects in

Myanmar’s Rakhine province. Australia has

unveiled an ambitious $2 billion project to fund

infrastructure and build maritime and military

infrastructure in the Pacific region, on which it

is willing to cooperate with other Quad

members.

HIMA DAS IS UNICEF INDIA'S FIRST YOUTH AMBASSADOR

The United Nations Children’s Fund —

India (Unicef—India) has appointed Asian

Games gold-medalist sprinter Hima Das

as the country’s first ever youth

ambassador.

The name of the woman athlete from

Assam was announced by the world

organisation in a tweet on Wednesday

eveing coinciding with the Children’s Day

celebrated on November 14

commemorating the country’s first Prime

Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday.

Hailing from Nagaon district, Das clinched

a gold medal in Women’s 4x400 metre

relay event at the 2018 Asian Games. She

also won a silver in the Women’s 400m

Race event.

GROWTH-INDIA TELESCOPE’S FIRST SCIENCE OBSERVATION The 0.7 m GROWTH-India telescope at

the Indian Astronomical Observatory

located in Hanle, Ladakh, has made its

first science observation which is a follow-

up study of a nova explosion. Novae are

explosive events involving violent

eruptions on the surface of white dwarf

stars, leading to temporary increase in

brightness of the star.

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The GROWTH-India telescope was

commissioned six months ago soon after

which it saw first light, on the night of June

12. “The telescope has been taking

readings since then, and this is the first

‘follow-up’ work. We are happy to see this

first science observation,” said G C

Anupama, who Professor-in-Charge of the

Indian Astronomical Observatory and is

based at Indian Institute of Astrophysics

(IIAP), Bengaluru.

The GROWTH-India telescope is part of

the Global Relay of Observatories

Watching Transients Happen. Its goals

are threefold: (1) Search for explosions in

the optical regime whenever LIGO group

detects a Binary Neutron Star merger (2)

study nearby young supernova

explosions. (3) Study nearby asteroids.

GOVERNMENT DIRECTIONS TO RBI UNDER SECTION 7 UNLIKELY The central board of the RBI will meet on

Monday to discuss contentious issues that

figured at the last board meeting —

economic capital, governance issues of

the central bank, boost for the micro, small

and medium-sized enterprises and the

prompt corrective action (PCA) framework

for banks.

Though the government had ‘referred’

Section 7 of the RBI Act for ‘consultation’

on these issues, it may refrain from

issuing directions as such a move will

have wide ramifications.

Section 7 has never been used in the 83-

year history of the bank. Invoking it would

be interpreted as interference in the

central bank’s autonomy. It would also

have a bearing on international agencies

such as the International Monetary Fund

(IMF) that issue ratings for central banks.

“These agencies have been raising the

issue of Section 7 for sometime now

saying that ‘if such a provision exists, then

how can RBI be independent?’ However,

the RBI has been telling them that though

that provision exists, it has never been

used,” said an another source.

The RBI may also climb down from its

position of stringent norms for the PCA

framework for banks. As many as 11

public sector banks out of 21 are under

PCA, which the government thinks is

hampering loan growth. RBI may ease

some of the conditions, which may help

some lenders come out

On the governance issue, it is increasingly felt

that the RBI management must be made

accountable to the board. The board so far has

refrained from taking up specific policy-related

issues and its main focus has been to provide

a broader vision to the central bank.

BIMSTEC TO BOOST CONNECTIVITY

Technical and Economic Cooperation was

set up in 1997 and includes India,

Bangladesh, Bhutan Myanmar, Nepal, Sri

Lanka and Thailand. The first summit was

held in 2004 and the secretariat

established in Dhaka in 2014.

Following the fourth meeting of the Bay of

Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral

Technical and Economic Cooperation

(BIMSTEC) in Kathmandu in August,2018

there is a renewed push to conclude a

series of proposals to further cooperation

and connectivity.

The top among them are a master plan on

connectivity and the motor vehicle

agreement, which have been in the works

for almost a decade. Other proposals like

a parliamentarians forum, cooperation on

cyber and space cooperation and

maritime security are under discussion.

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The dialogue is an outcome of the first

meeting of National Security Advisors held

in March 2017 and the second meeting of

security chiefs held in March 2018.

The draft connectivity master plan aims to

improve movement between member

states in all modes of transport and is

likely to be adopted during the ministerial

meeting early next year.

India circulated a draft coastal security

plan in December 2017 which has now

been circulated to member states and

their comments are awaited. A few days

ago, India had sent a proposal on a joint

parliamentarians forum and had asked for

suggestions from the members.

BIMSTEC is already looking at adopting

the model of ASEAN Coordinating Centre

for Humanitarian Assistance (AHA) on

disaster management. On the crucial

issue of joint fight against terrorism,

BIMSTEC already has a convention on

combating international terrorism.

BOARD FOR FINANCIAL SUPERVISION

The Reserve Bank of India performs this

function under the guidance of the Board for

Financial Supervision (BFS). The Board was

constituted in November 1994 as a committee

of the Central Board of Directors of the

Reserve Bank of India. Primary objective of

BFS is to undertake consolidated supervision

of the financial sector comprising commercial

banks, financial institutions and non-banking

finance companies.

Constitution

The Board is constituted by co-opting four

Directors from the Central Board as members

for a term of two years and is chaired by the

Governor. The Deputy Governors of the

Reserve Bank are ex-officio members. One

Deputy Governor, usually, the Deputy

Governor in charge of banking regulation and

supervision, is nominated as the Vice-

Chairman of the Board.

BFS meetings

The Board is required to meet normally once

every month. It considers inspection reports

and other supervisory issues placed before it

by the supervisory departments.

The BFS oversees the functioning of

Department of Banking Supervision (DBS),

Department of Non-Banking Supervision

(DNBS) and Financial Institutions Division

(FID) and gives directions on the regulatory

and supervisory issues.

Functions

Some of the initiatives taken by BFS include:

1. restructuring of the system of bank

inspections

2. introduction of off-site surveillance,

3. strengthening of the role of statutory

auditors and

4. strengthening of the internal defences

of supervised institutions.

The Audit Sub-committee of BFS has reviewed

the current system of concurrent audit, norms

of empanelment and appointment of statutory

auditors, the quality and coverage of statutory

audit reports, and the important issue of

greater transparency and disclosure in the

published accounts of supervised institutions.

Current Focus

1. supervision of financial institutions

2. consolidated accounting

3. legal issues in bank frauds

4. divergence in assessments of non-

performing assets and

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5. supervisory rating model for banks.

SOUTH KOREAN CANDIDATE CHOSEN AS INTERPOL CHIEF International police organisation Interpol

on Wednesday elected Kim Jong-yang of

South Korea as president, beating a

Russian whose candidacy had raised

concerns in Europe and the United States

about the risk of Kremlin interference.

THE SENTINELESE The Sentinelese, a negrito tribe who live

on the North Sentinel Island of the

Andamans, have not faced incursions and

remain hostile to outsiders. The

inhabitants are connected to the Jarawa

on the basis of physical, as well as

linguistic similarities, researchers say.

Based on carbon dating of kitchen

middens by the Anthropological Survey of

India, Sentinelese presence was

confirmed in the islands to 2,000 years

ago. Genome studies indicate that the

Andaman tribes could have been on the

islands even 30,000 years ago.

The Govt. of India issued the Andaman

and Nicobar Islands (Protection of

Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956 to

declare the traditional areas occupied by

the tribes as reserves, and prohibited

entry of all persons except those with

authorisation. Photographing or filming the

tribe members is also an offence. The

rules were amended later to enhance

penalties. But restricted area permits were

relaxed for some islands recently.

‘NEEDS OF 70% OF POPULATION MET BY PRIVATE SECTOR’ “India has invested in the healthcare

sector for the last 70 years, yet the needs

of 70% of the population are met by the

private sector,” said Ayushman Bharat

CEO Indu Bhushan.

While there have been significant efforts

to alleviate poverty, nearly six crore

people are driven to poverty each year

due to healthcare expenses. “India is one

of the fastest growing economy, yet

government spending is low. Ayushman

Bharat will address these paradoxes,” Mr.

Bhushan said.

ARTIFICIAL RAIN

Artificial rain is produced by spraying clouds

with substances like Silver Iodide (costly) or

cheaper ones like solid carbon dioxide (dry ice)

or even finely powdered Sodium Chloride. The

process is called seeding. Often there are

clouds, but no rain. This is because of a

phenomenon called supercooling. The

temperature of the cloud might be close to zero

and there might even be crystals of ice in it.

The water vapour in the cloud does not

condense to liquid water. The super cooling

gets disturbed by spraying the cloud with the

chemicals mentioned above, using a small

aeroplane for the purpose.

The `super' phenomena (cooling, heating,

saturation etc.) are perverse in a sense. Very

pure water when heated in a clean vessel,

often does not start boiling when expected.

Crystals of the photographer's hypo (Sodium

thiosulphate) easily dissolve in a little water

when heated. But on cooling, crystals do not

separate out. If the vessel is shaken

vigorously, or if a small crystal of hypo is

freshly added, then crystallization starts

immediately. Making artificial rain is a similar

way of intervening in the super cooling

phenomenon.

ABHIJIT BOSE NAMED WHATSAPP INDIA HEAD

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WhatsApp on November 21 named Abhijit

Bose as its India Head, meeting one of the

key demands made by the government.

Mr. Bose, who will join the messaging

platform early 2019, will build WhatsApp’s

first full country team outside of California

and will be based in Gurugram, WhatsApp

said in a statement. Mr. Bose and his

team will focus on helping businesses,

both large and small, connect with their

customers, it added.

US COURT ALLOWS DR.REDDY’S TO SELL GENERIC VERSION OF ‘SUBOXONE’ Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories shares surged

over 8% in early trade on Wednesday

following a U.S. court permitting the

company to sell a generic version of

British drugmaker Indivior’s opioid

dependence treatment drug Suboxone.

This decision vacates the District Court’s

preliminary injunction that had prohibited

Dr. Reddy’s from selling its generic

version of Suboxone (buprenorphine and

naloxone) sublingual film, a statement

from the company said.

GAUSE’S LAW IN ECOLOGY Also known as the competitive exclusion

principle, this refers to the proposition that

the populations of two competing species

cannot remain at stable levels over time.

When two species compete for control

over a limited amount of resources, the

dominant species will take advantage over

its weak competitor. This will cause the

weaker species to get excluded from its

previous territory and its population to

drop over time. The law is named after

Soviet biologist Georgii Gause although it

was formulated first by American biologist

Joseph Grinnell in his 1904 paper “The

Origin and Distribution of the Chestnut-

Backed Chickadee”.

KHASHOGGI MURDER: EU CALLS FOR ACCOUNTABILITY The European Union's top diplomat

Federica Mogherini said on Thursday that

all those “really responsible” for the

murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi

have to be held accountable.

After Saudi Arabia accepted responsibility

and said that 21 people were in custody,

with death penalties sought for five men,

attention turned to whether the crown

prince would be found culpable.

LEANING TOWER OF PISA STRAIGHTENED BY 4 CM The Leaning Tower of Pisa is now stable

and has even straightened slightly thanks

to engineering work to save the world-

renowned tourist attraction, experts said

on November 21.

The Tower was closed to the public in

January 1990 for 11 years over safety

fears, as its tilt reached 4.5 meters (15

feet) from the vertical. It has since been

straightened by more than 40 centimetres.

The medieval tower, a symbol of the

power of the maritime republic of Pisa in

the Middle Ages, has leaned to one side

ever since building started in 1173.

TERM OF OBC PANEL EXTENDED AGAIN The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved

the extension of term of the commission

examining the issue of sub-categorisation

of other backward classes (OBCs) in the

Central list till May 31, 2019, according to

an official statement.

This is the fourth extension of term given

to the commission formed in October last

year. The commission has held extensive

meetings with all stakeholders, including

State governments, State backward

classes commissions, community

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associations and general public, since its

formation.

The commission has also obtained

records, caste-wise data of OBCs

admitted to higher educational institutions

as well as similar caste-wise data of

recruits in Central government

departments, Central public sector

undertakings, public sector banks and

financial institutions.

‘PSBS CAN SEEK LOCs AGAINST DEFAULTERS’ To check wilful defaulters and fraudsters

from fleeing the country, the government

has now authorised CEOs of public sector

banks (PSBs) to make request for

issuance of look-out circulars (LOCs)

against suspects. The move comes

against the backdrop of defaults by Vijay

Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi and

thereafter, their fleeing the country.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)

recently made changes in the circular by

including CEOs of PSBs in the list of

officials who can make request for

issuance of LOCs to the ministry.

ONE MILLION CLOUD COMPUTING JOBS TO BE CREATED BY 2022 IN INDIA: REPORT

With cloud computing becoming more

prevalent in companies, both large and

small, the global requirement for

professionals is steadily on the rise and

over a million jobs in the sector will be

created in the country by 2022, according

to a report by Ed-tech platform for

executives Great Learning. It further

reveals that companies are currently

investing 4.5 times the rate of traditional IT

spending in cloud infrastructure, a trend

that is expected to grow even faster by

2020.

CLOUD COMPUTING

Cloud computing is shared pools of

configurable computer system resources and

higher-level services that can be rapidly

provisioned with minimal management effort,

often over the Internet. Cloud computing relies

on sharing of resources to achieve coherence

and economies of scale, similar to a public

utility.

Third-party clouds enable organizations to

focus on their core businesses instead of

expending resources on computer

infrastructure and maintenance. Advocates

note that cloud computing allows companies to

avoid or minimize up-front IT infrastructure

costs. Proponents also claim that cloud

computing allows enterprises to get their

applications up and running faster, with

improved manageability and less maintenance,

and that it enables IT teams to more rapidly

adjust resources to meet fluctuating and

unpredictable demand. Cloud providers

typically use a "pay-as-you-go" model, which

can lead to unexpected operating expenses if

administrators are not familiarized with cloud-

pricing models.

Cloud computing shares characteristics with:

• Client–server model—Client–server computing refers broadly to any distributed

application that distinguishes between

service providers (servers) and service

requestors (clients).

• Grid computing—"A form of distributed and

parallel computing, whereby a 'super and

virtual computer' is composed of a cluster

of networked, loosely coupled computers

acting in concert to perform very large

tasks."

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• Fog computing—Distributed computing

paradigm that provides data, compute,

storage and application services closer to

client or near-user edge devices, such as

network routers. Furthermore, fog

computing handles data at the network

level, on smart devices and on the end-user

client side (e.g. mobile devices), instead of

sending data to a remote location for

processing.

• Mainframe computer—Powerful computers

used mainly by large organizations for

critical applications, typically bulk data

processing such as: census; industry and

consumer statistics; police and secret

intelligence services; enterprise resource

planning; and financial transaction

processing.

• Utility computing—The "packaging of

computing resources, such as computation

and storage, as a metered service similar to

a traditional public utility, such as

electricity."

• Green computing- The goals of green

computing are similar to green chemistry:

reduce the use of hazardous materials,

maximize energy efficiency during the

product's lifetime, the recyclability or

biodegradability of defunct products and

factory waste. Green computing is

important for all classes of systems,

ranging from handheld systems to large-

scale data centers.

• Cloud sandbox—A live, isolated computer

environment in which a program, code or

file can run without affecting the application

in which it runs.

INDIA, CHINA SET FOR POST WUHAN BOUNDARY TALKS chal Pradesh. | Photo Credit: AP

National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will be

in Chengdu, China, on Friday for

boundary talks with foreign minister and

state councilor Wang Yi, to build on the

Wuhan informal summit in April between

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and

Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The 21st round of talks between the two

Special Representatives (SRs), which will

mainly take place on Saturday, is unlikely

to yield any major breakthrough on the

resolution of the boundary question,

especially as India goes into election

mode till the middle of next year.

AUSTRALIA LAUNCHES VISION 2035 FOR INDIA The Government of Australia has begun to

implement a vision document that will

shape bilateral ties with India till 2035. The

announcement from Prime Minister Scott

Morrison regarding implementing “India

Economic Survey” was made in the

backdrop of the ongoing visit to the

country by President Ram Nath Kovind.

The India Economic Survey is a report

authored by former Australian envoy Peter

Varghese and was released earlier this

year.

FIVE PACTS SIGNED

On the sidelines of the visit by President

Kovind, Australia and India on Thursday

concluded five agreements, including one

between the Central Mine Planning and

Design Institute based in Ranchi, and the

Commonwealth Scientific and Research

Organisation, Canberra. An agreement

between the Acharya N.G. Ranga

Agricultural University, Guntur, and the

University of Western Australia, Perth, for

cooperation in agricultural research and

education was also signed.

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ILLIQUID STOCKS

Illiquid refers to the state of a security or other

asset that cannot easily be sold or exchanged

for cash without a substantial loss in value.

Illiquid assets may also be hard to sell quickly

because of a lack of ready and willing investors

or speculators to purchase the asset.

Additionally, a company may be deemed

illiquid if it is unable to obtain the cash

necessary to meet debt obligations. Illiquidity is

the opposite of liquidity.

BANKS UNDER PCA SEE RETAIL LOAN SHARE JUMP 400 BPS The 11 state-run banks under the Reserve

Bank’s prompt corrective action (PCA)

framework have seen a 400 basis points

increase in their share of retail loans at

19% of the system in the four years ended

September 2018, says a report.

The Reserve Bank began to place state-

run banks under the PCA framework

starting September 2016, when their

NPAs soared beyond the regulatory

tolerance levels. But the present data is

for the period between March 2015 when

their retail share was only from 15% and

September 2018 when it rose to 19%,

according to American brokerage

Jefferies.

The PCA framework puts restrictions on

weaker banks on many aspects, including

fresh lending and expansion and salary

hikes. These banks’ NPAs hover in high

double-digits, with that of IDBI Bank being

the highest at close to 33% in the

September 2018 quarter.

OCEANS ARE HEATING MUCH FASTER: STUDY The world’s oceans have absorbed more

heat than previously thought over the last

quarter of a century, scientists said on

Thursday, leaving the earth more sensitive

still to the effects of climate change.

Oceans cover more than two thirds of the

planet’s surface and play a vital role in

sustaining life on the earth.

According to their most recent

assessment this month, scientists from the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change (IPCC) say the world’s oceans

have absorbed 90% of the temperature

rise caused by man-made carbon

emissions. But new research published in

the journal Nature used a novel method of

measuring ocean temperature.

It found that for each of the last 25 years,

oceans may have absorbed heat energy

equivalent to as much as 150 times the

amount of electricity mankind produces

annually. That is between 10-70% higher

than previous studies showed.

LUNAR LANDER FACES CRUCIAL TEST

The Chandrayaan-2 lunar lander’s

sensors are set to undergo a crucial test in

the next few days as the mission races

towards a planned take-off in around two

months.

The Indian Space Research Organisation

(ISRO) plans to fly the sensors on an

aircraft over its artificial lunar site at

Challakere to see how they will function

and guide the Chandrayaan-2 landing

craft when it starts descending on the

lunar terrain. The test flight is slated

tentatively for November 24.

The orbiter carrying the lander and a rover

is scheduled to be sent to the Moon from

Sriharikota on January 31 and expected to

reach there sometime in February 2019.

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PETYA AND NONPETYA RANSOMWARE

Petya is a family of encrypting

ransomware that was first discovered in

2016. The malware targets Microsoft

Windows-based systems, infecting the

master boot record to execute a payload

that encrypts a hard drive's file system

table and prevents Windows from booting.

It subsequently demands that the user

make a payment in Bitcoin in order to

regain access to the system.

TECHPLOMACY

Casper Klynge is Denmark’s and the world’s

first Tech Ambassador spearheading the

government’s decision to elevate technology to

a foreign policy priority as part of the

‘TechPlomacy-initiative’. The diplomat, who in

his previous roles had worked in conflict

regions such as Kosovo and Afghanistan’s

Helmand province, said his current job is the

most important role he had ever been involved.

He said this was because the market

capitalisation of companies such as Apple,

Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google) and

Facebook, had already overtaken the GDP of

many countries and most of them would qualify

for the international G20 forum. to work said

these discussions included sharing of

knowledge and best practices for solving

global challenges.

CORRIDOR OF HOPE: ON THE KARTARPUR PROPOSAL The announcement by India and Pakistan

of plans to operationalise a visa-free

corridor between Dera Baba Nanak in

Indian Punjab and Kartarpur Sahib in

Pakistan’s Punjab heeds a longstanding

plea of Sikh pilgrims. That demand had

gathered pace in 1995, when Pakistan

renovated the Kartarpur gurdwara,

situated on the site on the bank of the

Ravi where the founder of Sikhism, Guru

Nanak, spent his last 18 years. Leaders

from both sides, including Prime Ministers

Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Benazir Bhutto,

had pushed for it. In their effort to facilitate

travel by Sikhs to important shrines on

both sides of the border, they were also

alert to the potential of such a move to

heal ties amongst their people, and

promote dialogue between the two

governments. Given its easy logistics, the

4-km-long Kartarpur corridor is a low-

hanging fruit as a meaningful confidence-

building measure. The announcement

now is particularly timely, with the 550th

birth anniversary of Guru Nanak falling in

November 2019.

TIGER RELOCATION

At a time when the killing of tigress Avni in

Maharashtra has triggered massive

outrage, the death of a tiger in Odisha has

sparked fears among forest officials and

experts over the fate of the first interState

translocation of tigers in the country. On

November 15, the death of a male tiger

was reported from the Satkosia Tiger

Reserve. Forest Department officials ruled

out poaching and the post-mortem report

said a wound infested with maggots on

the left side of its neck led to septicaemia,

causing death. However, the fact that a

young tiger died within five months of

being translocated from Madhya Pradesh

has raised more questions than answers.

With decades of efforts at conservation

bearing fruit, India has 70% of the tiger

population in the world. The count

increased from 1,411 during 2006 to 1,706

during 2010 and 2,226 during 2014,

according to census figures. Experts and

tiger biologists say many tiger reserves in

the country are dealing with the problem

of plenty. Tigers are territorial animals,

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and there are reports of the wild cat

straying from the reserves, a few travelling

hundreds of kilometres in search of food.

In the past, tigers have been relocated

within the reserves of a State. The

translocation of tigers from the reserve of

Madhya Pradesh to Satsokia was,

however, far more ambitious. The project

involved the Forest Departments of both

States and needed the approval of the

National Tiger Conservation Authority

(NTCA) and scientists of the Wildlife

Institute of India (WII).

SYED MODI INTERNATIONAL BADMINTON: SAMEER VERMA DEFENDS TITLE , SAINA LOOSES IN FINAL A gritty Sameer Verma pulled off a thrilling

three-game victory over China’s Lu Guangzu in

the men’s singles finals to retain the title at the

Syed Modi International World Tour Super 300

in Lucknow on November 25.

Former champion Saina Nehwal failed to

produce her best, losing in straight games to

young Han Yue of China in a one-sided

women’s singles summit clash at the Syed

Modi International World Tour Super 300 here

Sunday.

DAVIS CUP FINAL: CLINICAL CILIC SEALS IT FOR CROATIA Marin Cilic clinched Croatia’s second Davis

Cup title as he beat France’s Lucas Pouille 7-

6(3), 6-3, 6-3 to give his side a decisive 3-1

lead in the final at Stade Pierre Mauroy on

Sunday.

The powerful World No. 7 was relentless as he

snuffed out any hope of a famous French

fightback — giving Pouille little chance of

sending the showpiece into a fifth rubber.

27 EU LEADERS APPROVE TERMS OF BREXIT DEAL

The leaders of the 27 EU states will approve

the agreement before being joined by British

Prime Minister Theresa May. The leaders of

the 27 other European Union members states

on Sunday approved the terms of a historic

Brexit deal with Britain, at a special summit in

Brussels.

"EU27 has endorsed the withdrawal agreement

and political declaration on the future EU-UK

relations," EU Council president Donald Tusk

announced on Twitter. The formal conclusions

state that the Council of EU leaders "endorses

the agreement on the withdrawal of the United

Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

from the European Union and the European

Atomic Energy Community."

It invites all EU institutions "to take the

necessary steps to ensure that the agreement

can enter into force on March 30, 2019, so as

to provide for an orderly withdrawal". Britain

will leave the EU on March 29.

106 JUDICIAL POSTINGS CLEARED IN A MONTH

The government has singularly honoured the

recommendations of the Supreme Court

Collegium since October 3, the day Justice

Ranjan Gogoi took office as 46th Chief Justice

of India.

The Ministry of Law and Justice website shows

that 106 judicial appointments to the High

Courts and the Supreme Court were issued by

the government from October 3 till date. These

orders include the appointment of four new

judges to the Supreme Court on November 1,

less than a month since Chief Justice Gogoi

took over as top judge. The government also

approved 16 transfers of judges to the various

High Courts. In fact, the total 122 appointments

and transfers (106+16) come within 26 days of

Chief Justice Gogoi taking over. That is, the

number of orders of appointments issued by

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the government is 4.8 times more than the

number of days the Supreme Court worked

since October 3.

ANDAMAN & NICOBAR ISLANDS: HOME TO A TENTH OF INDIA’S FAUNA SPECIES

The islands, comprising only 0.25% of

country’s geographical area, has 11,009

species, according to a publication by the

Zoological Survey of India. The Narcondam

hornbill, its habitat restricted to a lone island;

the Nicobar megapode, a bird that builds nests

on the ground; the Nicobar treeshrew, a small

mole-like mammal; the Long-tailed Nicobar

macaque, and the Andaman day gecko, are

among the 1,067 endemic faunal species

found only on the Andaman and Nicobar

Islands and nowhere else.

A recent publication by the Zoological Survey

of India (ZSI) titled Faunal Diversity of Biogeographic Zones: Islands of India has for

the first time come up with a database of all

faunal species found on the island, putting the

number at 11,009. The documentation proves

that the islands, comprising only 0.25% of

India’s geographical area, are home to more

than 10% of the country’s fauna species. The

publication, however, also cautions that

tourism, illegal construction and mining are

posing a threat to the islands’ biodiversity,

which is already vulnerable to volatile climatic

factors.

“The presence of a large number of species in

such a small area makes the Andaman and

Nicobar Islands one of the richest ecosystems

and biodiversity hot spots in India. Some of the

species in A&N Islands are restricted to a very

small area and thus more vulnerable to any

anthropogenic threat,” Kailash Chandra,

Director-ZSI, and one of the authors of the

publication, said. The total area of the A&N

Islands, which comprises of 572 islands, islets

and rocky outcrops, is about 8,249 sq. km. The

population of the islands, which includes six

particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs)

— Great Andamanese, Onge, Jarawa,

Sentinelese, Nicobarese and Shompens — is

not more than 4 lakh. The number of tourists

visiting the islands has crossed the number of

people residing in them, with latest data

showing 4.87 lakh tourists visiting the islands

annually.

HANTAVIRUSES First identified in 1993, hantaviruses

cause severe and sometimes fatal

respiratory infections and are known to

infect lung cells. Though relatively rare,

infections caused by them are expected to

increase in the coming decades as

temperatures across the globe rise due to

climate change. The danger is that we are

totally unprepared for this possibility.

Hantavirus is transmitted to humans who

inhale the virus from the urine, faeces, or

saliva of infected rodents. Infection with

hantavirus can progress to Hantavirus

Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS). Early HPS

symptoms include fatigue, fever and

muscle aches, followed after a week or so

by coughing and shortness of breath. HPS

has a mortality rate of around 40%,

according to the U.S. Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention. No treatments or

vaccines are available. A study on

hantaviruses has been published in

Nature, and its findings could point to a

strategy to fight HPS.

HOME IS THE DEADLIEST PLACE FOR WOMEN, SAYS UN STUDY

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Many were murdered by abusive partners,

while others were victims in so-called

honour killings or disputes over dowries.

Home is the most dangerous place for a

woman, according to a United Nations

study that found the number killed by a

partner or relative is rising globally.

About 50,000 women were killed

worldwide last year by a current or former

partner or a family member — equating to

137 per day or six per hour — found the

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

(UNODC). “While the vast majority of

homicide victims are men, women

continue to pay the highest price as a

result of gender inequality, discrimination

and negative stereotypes,” said UNODC

executive director Yury Fedotov in a

statement.

The total number of such murders rose

slightly between 2012 and 2017 — and

the proportion of female homicide victims

killed by partners or family rose from less

than half in 2012 to nearly six in ten last

year, said the report.

Many were murdered by abusive partners,

while others were victims in so-called

honour killings or disputes over dowries, it

added. Murders by partners or family are

often not one-off attacks, but the

culmination of previous domestic abuse,

said the report.

'MISINFORMATION' AS WORD OF THE YEAR

Last year’s word of the year was

“complicit.” In 2016, it was “xenophobia.”

Misinformation, as opposed to

disinformation, was chosen on November

26 as Dictionary.com’s word of the year.

RBI EASES ECB HEDGING NORMS FOR COMPANIES

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has eased

hedging norms for companies that raise funds

through external commercial borrowings

(ECB), a move that will lower the cost of

hedging. A notification issued by the central

bank said mandatory hedge coverage has

been reduced from 100% to 70% under Track I

of the ECB framework.

The RBI also clarified that the ECBs raised

prior to this circular would be required to

mandatorily roll over their existing hedge only

to the extent of 70% of outstanding ECB

exposure. According to the RBI, Track I refers

to medium-term foreign currency-denominated

ECBs with a minimum average maturity of 3-5

years. The move will help reduce costs for

companies that raise foreign funds. “The cost

of hedging has gone up in the last six months

with the strengthening of the dollar. As a result,

the ECB route was becoming unattractive to

firms,”

BUYBACK

A buyback, also known as a share

repurchase, is when a company buys its own

outstanding shares to reduce the number of

shares available on the open market.

Companies buy back shares for a number of

reasons, such as to increase the value of

remaining shares available by reducing the

supply or to prevent other shareholders from

taking a controlling stake.

A buyback allows companies to invest in

themselves. Reducing the number of shares

outstanding on the market increases the

proportion of shares owned by investors. A

company may feel its shares are undervalued

and do a buyback to provide investors with a

return. And because the company is bullish on

its current operations, a buyback also boosts

the proportion of earnings that a share is

allocated. This will raise the stock price if the

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same price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is

maintained.

Another reason for a buyback is for

compensation purposes. Companies often

award their employees and management with

stock rewards and stock options; to make due

on rewards and options, companies buy back

shares and issue them to employees and

management. This helps avoid the dilution of

existing shareholders.

UKRAINE DECLARES MARTIAL LAW

Emergency measures to be in place in border

areas for 30 days; move comes after incident

near Crimea. Russian President Vladimir Putin

on Tuesday warned Ukraine against any

“reckless acts” after Kiev declared martial law

in response to Moscow’s seizure of three of its

Navy vessels.

The Ukrainian Parliament late on Monday

voted in favour of President Petro

Poroshenko’s request for the introduction of

martial law in border areas for 30 days.

The move came after Russian forces fired on,

boarded and captured three of Kiev’s ships on

Sunday off the coast of Crimea, sparking the

most dangerous crisis between the ex-Soviet

neighbours in years. The incident was the first

major confrontation at sea in the long-running

conflict pitting Ukraine against Moscow and

Russian-backed separatists in the country’s

east. It has raised fears of a wider escalation

— in a conflict that has killed more than 10,000

people since 2014 — and prompted

international calls for restraint.

CHINESE ACADEMIC CLAIMS TO HAVE GENE-EDITED TWINS

Chinese health and medical ethics authorities

started an investigation on Monday into claims

by a scientist who released videos on

YouTube, saying he had altered the genes of

twins born earlier this month, creating the first

gene edited babies.

Earlier, the Southern University of Science and

Technology in Shenzhen, where the scientist,

He Jiankui, holds an associate professorship,

said it had been unaware of the research

project and that Mr. He had been on leave

without pay since February. The work is a

“serious violation of academic ethics and

standards”, the University said. The university

issued a statement after Mr. He said in five

videos posted on Monday that he used a gene-

editing technology known as CRISPR-Cas9 to

edit the genes of twin girls.

NASA'S INSIGHT SPACECRAFT LANDS ON RED PLANET

NASA last landed on Mars in 2012 with the

Curiosity rover. A NASA spacecraft designed

to burrow beneath the surface of Mars landed

on the red planet Monday after a six-month,

300 million-mile (482 million-kilometre) journey

and a perilous, six-minute descent through the

rose-hued atmosphere.

Flight controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion

Laboratory in Pasadena, California, leaped out

of their seats and erupted in screams,

applause and laughter as the news came in.

The three-legged InSight spacecraft reached

the surface after being slowed by a parachute

and braking engines, the space agency said.

Updates were coming in via radio signals that

take more than eight minutes to cross the

nearly 100 million miles (160 million

kilometres) between Mars and Earth.

It was NASA’s ninth attempt to land at Mars

since the 1976 Viking probes. All but one of the

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previous U.S. touchdowns were successful. NASA last landed on Mars in 2012 with the

Curiosity rover. Viewings were held coast to

coast at museums, planetariums and libraries,

as well as New York’s Times Square. The plan

called for the spacecraft to go from 12,300 mph

(19,800 kph) to zero in six minutes flat as it

pierced the Martian atmosphere and settled on

the surface.

DEATH PENALTY FREAKISHLY IMPOSED: JUSTICE KURIAN

SC judge says ‘rarest of rare’ test

‘inconsistently applied’; Justice Kurian Joseph,

one of the senior-most judges of the Supreme

Court, on Wednesday said the courts had been

imposing the death penalty “arbitrarily and

freakishly” all these years.

The dissent from within the very corridors of

the Supreme Court comes almost four

decades after a Constitution Bench upheld

capital sentencing as a punishment under the

law. A Constitution Bench in the Bachan Singh

case in 1980, however, added a rider that

judges should award the punishment only in

the “rarest of rare category” of cases.

But Justice Kurian, in his judgment while

heading a three-judge Bench hearing the

appeal of a man sentenced to death in

Chhattisgarh, said the test of “rarest of rare”

had been “inconsistently applied” by courts.

The judge, third in seniority in the Supreme

Court, quoted from the 262nd Law

Commission report to conclude that the so-

called rider of “rarest of rare” had failed to

prevent judges from arbitrarily sending the

guilty to the hangman.

Justice Kurian asked what proper

psychological/psychiatric evaluation is

conducted before a convict is found to be

beyond reform and sentenced to death.

“Without the assistance of a

psychological/psychiatric assessment and

evaluation it would not be proper to hold that

there is no possibility or probability of reform,”

Justice Kurian wrote.

TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION: ON DAMAGE CAUSED BY CYCLONE GAJA

It is now becoming clear that Cyclone Gaja is a

major disaster, and its economic impact in

Tamil Nadu is comparable to that of the

tsunami of 2004. The devastation suffered by

tens of thousands of people in several districts

of the State has been severe, going well

beyond the annual storm season losses. In the

initial days after November 16, when the

cyclone struck, the State heaved a sigh of

relief since the death toll was relatively low.

But it is now clear that the suffering, the loss,

and the displacement in large parts of

Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam, Thanjavur and

Pudukottai districts is of an enormous

magnitude. Communities in the affected areas

are distraught as houses have collapsed,

farms lie ruined, water sources are

contaminated and electricity supply remains

disrupted. Many areas remain inaccessible

because fallen trees have blocked roads.

In its report to the Centre, the Tamil Nadu

government has estimated the number of

people rendered homeless at 3.7 lakh, and

houses destroyed at 3.4 lakh. The cyclone has

crippled agriculture and livelihoods in a fertile

region, felling thousands of productive trees

and killing livestock. Between 60% and 80% of

the coconut trees in the region have fallen,

hobbling Tamil Nadu’s farmers, who contribute

a quarter of India’s coconuts with the highest

unit yield. Unlike paddy or many other crops,

bringing coconut plantations back to life will

take years.

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NORWAY’S CARLSEN BEATS CARUANA TO DEFEND CHESS WORLD TITLE

Reigning chess world champion, Norway's

Magnus Carlsen smiles during a press

conference after retaining the World chess

Championship in London on November 28,

2018. Norwegian grandmaster Magnus

Carlsen has defended his chess world

championship title by beating American

challenger Fabiano Caruana 3-0 in rapid

tiebreaker games.

After their three-week match ended in 12

draws, Carlsen wrapped up the victory quickly

on Wednesday with three straight wins to build

an unassailable lead in the best-of-four rapid

format. The tiebreakers were played with 25

minutes for each player per game, while the 12

previous classical-style games lasted up to

seven hours each. It’s the third time the 27-

year-old Carlsen has successfully defended his

title after winning it from Viswanathan Anand of

India in 2013.

ISRO'S PSLV-C43 SUCCESSFULLY PLACES HYSIS This is the 13th flight of the core-alone version

and 45th launch of the PSLV. Nearly three

minutes after its lift-off at 9.57 a.m. on

Thursday, the Indian Space Research

Organisation's (ISRO) workhorse, the PSLV,

carrying 31 satellites, soared in a trajectory

crossing the path of the Sun and sped to inject

the country's Hyper Spectral Imaging Satellite

(HysIS), dubbed ‘Sharp Eye’, in its intended

orbit.

The HysIS is is an Earth observation

satellite primarily to assist in a wide range

of applications in agriculture, forestry,

geological environments, coastal zones,

among others.

The 30 satellites are one each from

Australia, Canada, Colombia, Finland,

Malaysia, Netherlands and Spain, and 23

from the USA. After 17 minutes from the

lift-off from the first launchpad of the

Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC)

SHAR, Sriharikota, the PSLV C-43

injected the HysIS into a precise orbit of

636 km from the Earth.

“The heart of the system required for the

HysIS satellite is basically an optical

imaging detector chip. This chip has been

indigenously designed by the Space

Application Centre of the ISRO and

fabricated at our semi-conductor lab at

Chandigarh. I am sure that team ISRO

can be proud that they are really giving an

excellent space asset to India,” he said.

51 PILOT WHALES DIE IN ANOTHER MASS STRANDING IN NEW ZEALAND Fifty-one pilot whales died on Friday in

another mass stranding in New Zealand,

less than a week after 145 pilot whales

and nine pygmy killer whales perished in

two other, unrelated strandings. In the

latest stranding, up to 90 pilot whales

beached themselves late Thursday at

Hanson Bay on the remote Chatham

Islands, said the Department of

Conservation.

When staff arrived at first light, they said

they found up to 40 of the whales had

refloated themselves but another 50 had

died on the beach. The department said

one beached whale remained alive, which

staff decided to euthanize due to its poor

condition.

The Chatham Islands sit about 800

kilometers (500 miles) east of New

Zealand’s main islands and are home to

about 600 people.

Last weekend, 145 pilot whales died on

Stewart Island. By the time conservation

workers arrived there, about 75 of the

whales were already dead and they

decided to euthanize the others by

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shooting them due to their poor condition

and remote location. On Sunday, 10

pygmy killer whales were found stranded

at Ninety Mile Beach on the North Island.

Dr. Lundquist said that while scientists

don’t typically know why individual whale

strandings occur, they believe there are

probably a range of reasons. He said they

could be caused by the whales navigating

incorrectly, trying to escape from

predators, or some of them suffering

injuries or illness. He said there could also

be man-made factors like underwater

noise. Whale strandings are most

common in New Zealand during the

Southern Hemisphere spring and summer.

PANDAVANI Pandavani is a folk singing style involving

narration of tales from the ancient Indian epic

Mahabharata. The singing also involves

musical accompaniment. Bhima, the second of

the Pandava is the hero of the story in this

style. This form of folk theatre is popular in the

central Indian state of Chhattisgarh and in the

neighbouring areas of Madhya Pradesh,

Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. Jhaduram

Dewangan and Teejan Bai are the most

renowned singers of this style. Among

contemporary artists, Ritu Verma is popular

along with others such as Shantibai Chelak

and Usha Barle.

PHAD PAINTING

Phad painting or Phad is a style religious scroll

painting and folk painting, practiced in

Rajasthan state of India. This style of painting

is traditionally done on a long piece of cloth or

canvas, known as phad. The narratives of the

folk deities of Rajasthan, mostly of Pabuji and

Devnarayan are depicted on the phads. The

Bhopas, the priest-singers traditionally carry

the painted phads along with them and use

these as the mobile temples of the folk deities.

The phads of Pabuji are normally about 15 feet

in length, while the phads of Devnarayan are

normally about 30 feet long. Traditionally the

phads are painted with vegetable colors.

The Joshi families of Bhilwara, Shahpura in

Bhilwara district of Rajasthan are widely known

as the traditional artists of this folk art-form for

the last two centuries. Presently, Shree Lal

Joshi, Nand Kishor Joshi, Pradip Mukherjee,

Prakash Joshi and Shanti Lal Joshi are the

most noted artists of the phad painting, who

are known for their innovations and creativity.

POWADA

The Powada is a genre of Marathi poetry that

emerged during the late 17th century in India.

The powadas are a kind of ballad written in an

exciting style and narrate historical events in

an inspiring way. The composer-cum-singers

of the powadas are known as Shahirs. Earlier,

powadas were mostly composed by the

eyewitnesses of the great events celebrated in

those ballads. During the Peshwa rule, several

celebrated Shahir poet-singers, which include

Ram Joshi (1762–1812), Anant Phandi (1744–

1819), Honaji Bala (1754–1844) and

Prabhakar (1769–1843) composed a number

of powadas.

OPERATION SMILE

Operation Smile is a nonprofit medical service

organization founded in 1982 by Dr. William P.

Magee, Jr. and his wife Kathy Magee. It is

headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia. In

addition to providing cleft lip and palate repair

surgeries to children worldwide, Operation

Smile works as a non-governmental

organization to reduce the occurrence of cleft

lips and palates worldwide; develops

ambassadorships to raise awareness of cleft

issues; sponsors a world care program for

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international cases requiring special care;

organizes chapters and foundations worldwide

to assist countries in reaching self-sufficiency

with cleft surgeries; hosts a U.S. care network

to assist families in the U.S. with cleft issues

and develops and administers worldwide

education programs related to cleft issues; and

organizes student leadership programs.

GSP

The Generalized Scheme of Preferences, or

GSP, is a preferential tariff system which

provides for a formal system of exemption from

the more general rules of the World Trade

Organization (WTO), (formerly, the General

Agreement on Tariffs and Trade or GATT).[1]

Specifically, it is a system of exemptions from

the most favored nation principle (MFN) that

obliges WTO member countries to treat the

imports of all other WTO member countries no

worse than they treat the imports of their "most

favored" trading partner. In essence, MFN

requires WTO member countries to treat

imports coming from all other WTO member

countries equally, that is, by imposing equal

tariffs on them.

GSP exempts WTO member countries from

MFN for the purpose of lowering tariffs for the

least developed countries, without also

lowering tariffs for rich countries. The idea of

tariff preferences for developing countries was

the subject of considerable discussion within

the United Nations Conference on Trade and

Development (UNCTAD) in the 1964. Among

other concerns, developing countries claimed

that MFN was creating a disincentive for richer

countries to reduce and eliminate tariffs and

other trade restrictions with enough speed to

benefit developing countries. Recently, USA

has withdrawn GSP concession from india for

$75 million of imports.

LIST OF CENTRALLY SPONSORED SCHEMES

(important schemes are highlighted/underlined though it is advisable to know all )

1. DR. Shayama Prasad Mukherji

Durghatna Sahayata Yojna

2. Crop Residual Management Scheme

3. Deen Dayal Upadhaya Gram Jyoti

Yojna

4. Ekikrit Kaushal Vikas Yojna

5. Soil health Card Scheme

6. Smart Cities Mission

7. UDAN Scheme’

8. Ayushman Bharat

9. Universal Immunization Program

10. Saubhagya Yojna

11. PM Fasal Bima Yojna

12. Parampragat Krishi Vikas Yojna

13. e-National Agricultural Market Scheme

e- NAM

14. Jal Kranti Abhiyan Yojna

15. AMRUT Scheme

16. PM Kaushal Vikas Yojna

17. PM Krishi Sinchai Yojna

18. One Stop Centre-SAKHI

19. e-Way Bill Scheme

20. Neeli Kranti Scheme

21. Standup India scheme

22. Rastriya Krishi Bazar Portal

23. Rastriya Krishi Vikas Yojna

24. Smart gram Yojna

25. PM ujjawala Yojna

26. Mission Indra Dhanush

27. PM Mudra Yojna

28. PM Suraksha Bima Yojna

29. Pm Jivan Jyoti Bima Yojna

30. Atal Pension Yojna

31. PM Awas Yojna

32. Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojna

33. PM Jan Dhan Yojna

34. Multi-sectoral Nutrition Mission

35. National Nutrition Mission

36. Sukanya Samridhi Yojna

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37. Beti Bachao Beti Padhao

38. Deen Dayal Jan Awas Yojna

39. Shayama Prasad RURBAN Mission

40. Setu Bharatam scheme

41. Ujala Yojna

42. PM Matru Vandana Yojna

43. ESI Scheme

44. Ishaan

45. Nayi Roshni

46. Nayi Savera

47. Nai Manjil Yojna

48. Sarva Siksha Scheme

49. MGNAREGA

50. Make in India

51. Startup India

52. Namami Gange

53. Kasturba Gandhi Balika yojna

54. Swaccha Bharat Yojna

55. Darwaja Band Scheme

56. Sugamya Bharat Yojna (accessible

India Yojna)

57. National Gokul Mission

58. Come and Play Scheme

59. Deen Dayal Antyodya Yojna

60. Livelihood Rural Express Scheme

61. HRIDAY scheme

62. Samapda Scheme

63. Atal Innovation Mission

64. PM Youth Scheme

65. Roshni Scheme

66. PM Surakshit Matritva Yojna

67. Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojna

68. Maternity Benefit Scheme

69. STEP Yojna

70. SABLA

71. Integrated Child Development Scheme

72. Kayakalp Yojna

73. PM Bhartiya Jan Ausadhi Yojna

74. Stri Swabhimaan Yojna

75. Saathi Yojna

76. Samartha Yojna

77. Deen Dayal Shrameva Jayate Scheme

78. Powertex Scheme

79. Sagarmala Yojna

80. Bharatmala Yojna

81. USTAD Scheme

82. PM Rural Digital Literacy Scheme

83. DARPAN Scheme

84. National Disaster Management

Scheme

85. Atal Bhu Jal Yojna

86. Electoral Bond Scheme

87. Deen Dayal SPARSH Scheme

88. Vikalp Scheme

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